To give you a great browsing experience free of charge, this site uses cookies. Cookies help us personalize content and ads, provide social media features,
track your preferences, and analyze traffic. Forbes may share this information with its advertising, analytics, and social media partners, who may use it
with information you have provided to them in connection with their services.

It’s safe to say that we now live in a freelance economy. More and more people are choosing to become freelancers over traditional employment. While there are many benefits to freelancing, there are also struggles. Freelancers must play many different roles and juggle multiple tasks at any given time.

Maximizing productivity can be a real challenge. If you’re interested in some new approaches, check out these nine productivity boosting tips.

1. Nix the linear approach and group like tasks instead

Freelancers often divide work according to projects and clients. They’ll work through all outstanding tasks for a particular client for example. Then move onto the next. As an alternative, they may grab one project, complete it, then select the next project.

That may not be the most efficient way to work. Your brain is constantly shifting gears. However, if you group similar tasks together, you can improve productivity. For example, you could make all of the phone calls you need to in one sitting. Then, you can turn your focus to all of your writing tasks.

2. See breaks as a productivity tool, not an indulgence

While there may be times when you have to skip breaks or work through your meals, as a general rule skipping breaks isn’t going to help with your productivity. In fact, the opposite is true.

Breaks give you something to look forward to. If you know you’ll have 15 to 30 minutes of free time coming up, it’s much easier to stay on task. This can help you avoid checking your email or social media when you need to be working. Breaks are also a great way to refresh and re-energize. Use a Pomodoro timer to create an optimal schedule.

3. Create a workplace ambience that helps you stay productive

Your workspace plays an important role in your productivity. It should be well lit, ergonomically friendly, comfortable, and aesthetically pleasing. It may seem like a small thing, but you shouldn’t dismiss the importance of such elements as natural lighting, the presence of items that make you happy, and the furniture colors that you select.

4. Do admin tasks last unless they are urgent

It’s tempting to do admin tasks early. After all, they are mostly light weight and don’t require too much mental energy. Unfortunately, there’s not nearly as much value in these tasks as far as profitability or productivity. Tackling admin tasks can also serve as a way to avoid tough or undesirable tasks.

5. Reward your own productivity

There’s something to be said for extrinsic motivation. However, as a freelancer there’s no boss to hand you a monthly bonus, tell you to cut out early for the day, or give you a present in exchange for your extra work or accomplishments. This leaves you the job of rewarding yourself when you meet your goals.

6. Reclaim your mornings

In a perfect world, life would happen according to your body’s natural rhythms and energy levels. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Life requires most of us to hit the ground running in the morning. That can be tough for night owls.

Fortunately, there are strategies that can help you increase your energy in the morning and maintain that throughout the day. Some of these include adding a short morning workout, getting in plenty of protein for breakfast, and mixing caffeine later in the day to ensure better sleep. Start your morning off right to have a productive day.

7. Schedule meetings later in the day

Morning meetings can really throw your day out of whack. They force you to put down tasks you are working on and leave your workspace. This is even more true for off site meetings. Whenever possible, try to make meetings the last few things during the day. It’s much more productive to work as much as possible first, then deal with meetings than it is to shift gears back into work mode after a meeting.

8. Gamify your work day by creating personal challenges

Gamification is the use of gaming techniques and strategies in non gaming situations. It’s been proven to work well in education, customer engagement and the workplace. You can apply these techniques as well.

One way to do this is to create personal challenges for yourself. Let’s say you work as a freelance writer. You could set a personal challenge to write 2,500 words or more per day for a week. You might also set a goal of pitching five articles each week.

9. Associate tasks with the expenses they can cover

Thinking in terms of what each task means to you can help you to stay focused and motivated. Instead of thinking, “I need to finish this website for my client,” try reframing that as “The profit I earn from finishing this website will make my car payment for the next two months.” Making an important sale can be seen as covering groceries and daycare for the next few weeks. It’s much easier to stay on track when you can associate completing tasks with a concrete benefit to your life.

If you’ve tried all of the typical advice on productivity and still want something more, test drive a few of the tips listed above. They may just give you the boost you need to get more done. That in turn can help you become an even more successful freelancer.

I am a writer, entrepreneur and the proud founder and CEO of Oxygenmat. I graduated summa cum laude from University of Ilorin with a degree in Law, winning the award of…Read More

I am a writer, entrepreneur and the proud founder and CEO of Oxygenmat. I graduated summa cum laude from University of Ilorin with a degree in Law, winning the award of the Best Graduating Student in the Faculty of Law. I started writing in 2009 and honed my skills by entering over 100 writing contests, winning 11 of them. I got into freelance writing and grew the business pretty fast, to the point when I had more work than I could handle alone, and started my company, Oxygenmat. Today, I help people succeed at freelancing and content marketing, and I have been featured on World Economic Forum, Entrepreneur, Inc., The Huffington Post, Search Engine Watch, The Next Web, Engadget, among others.Read Less